And the thing about idolatry? Is that it works predictably in
all of our. It makes us go out of our right
mind. Doesn't.
It at the end of the story it's the demon possessed man who's in
his right. Mind in the Village People.
Who are out of their. I think one of the most
difficult things in life in a fallen world is this dynamic.
It's met with resistance. And maybe you've seen this
dynamic before, maybe you've experienced this dynamic.
But in a fallen world, sometimes when Jesus does a mighty work
rather than being. So I remember my my first year
of pastor. I remember experiencing this.
We were planting Frontier seven years ago.
First year of planting, not a lot of things are going right.
Not a lot of things are going well.
Not a lot of wins in that first year of planting.
I remember having a win. There was one Sunday where after
a sermon, I had a buddy come up to me and he was like.
Dude, that was like. One of the most powerful sermons
I've ever heard, and the Lord. Used it to build me up and blah
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
Now, I hadn't heard a lot of that in my first year of
pastoring, so that was a really big win tonight.
We're like getting there at 5:30 AM at woolies and scraping
tobacco spit off the floor and like, man, what am I doing with
my life? I miss being an English.
Teacher, I love this, but what am I doing with my life?
Is anybody going to show up? Not a lot of wins.
So when I got that encouragement, I really took
that to heart. And I'll never forget how
disheartening it felt when I. Shared that with a buddy and it
was met with resistance. It's like, hey man, this, this
church member said that this was one of the most powerful sermons
he's experienced. It just feels good to like be
used by God in in a. Mighty way, he said That.
It built him up in this way and that way.
And I'll never forget having my buddy look at me and say, yeah,
he doesn't really know what he's.
Talking about does he and I was like?
Oh my goodness, I just. What is that?
I was talking to a church member
last year and this is. A story that's just stuck with
me ever since I heard that. Story She's just like one of the
coolest people ever. And so it's just jaw-dropping
when you hear stories like this. I was talking to her about.
How Jesus saved her and transformed her in college and
she was talking about. How you know, being in college
was awesome because she was finally surrounded with like a
group and a community of young people who were, like,
passionate and on. Fire for Jesus.
And so she was passionate and on.
Fire for Jesus. And she went home for the
summer, and she was like reading her Bible every day, praying
every day on fire for. Jesus, like every day.
And it's the type of thing that when when you experience that
fire, what we need is for that to be flamed, right?
And so. There she is just flourishing in
Jesus, loving her walk with the Lord.
And one day her mother came up to her and said, I miss the old
you. What is that?
What? What is that and human nature
that? Does that you see a buddy of
yours finally begin to grow in? Christ likeness.
You see a sister of yours begin to succeed and take risks and
experience success. And there's something in you.
That just can't celebrate, right?
It's like being at the. Bottom of a crab barrel.
You see another crab escaping and you want to reach up, grab
them and pull them back. Down in the crab barrel.
What is that? And we're going to see that in
our text this morning. Jesus is going to do an amazing
work of healing where he. Just clearly shows His divine
identity as the Son. Of God.
And rather than having that miracle celebrated, it's going
to be met with. I want you to see that this
morning and I want you to be asking yourself this question.
What is that? Let's stand for the reign of
God's Word Mark 5. Jesus has just still the sea.
He gets to the other side. And verse one picks up right
here. They came to the.
Other side of the sea to the country of the.
And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there
met him out of the tombs. A man with an unclean spirit.
He lived among the tombs and no one could bind him anymore, not
even with a chain. For he had often been bound with
shackles and chains. But he wrenched the chains
apart. And he.
Broke the shackles and pieces no one had.
This strength to subdue him night and day among the tombs
and on the mountains. He was always crying out and
cutting himself with stones and when he saw Jesus from afar, he
ran and fell down before him and crying out with a loud voice, he
said. What?
Have you to do with? Me, Jesus, Son of the Most High
God. That's what he calls Jesus.
Son of the Most High God. I adjure you by God.
Do not torment me, for, he was saying to him.
Come out of the man you want clean spirit and Jesus asked
him. What is your name?
He replied. My name is Legion, for we are
many. My name is Legion, for we are
many. And he begged him earnestly not
to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was
feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying,
send us. To the pigs, let us.
Enter them. So we gave them permission, and
the unclean spirits came out of the and.
Came out and entered. And people from the village came
to see what it was that had happened.
The pigs in the herd, numbering about 2000, rushed down the
steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.
The herdsman fled and told it in the city and in the country of.
And they came to Jesus and saw the demon possessed man, the one
who had the legion sitting there clothed and in his right mind.
And they were afraid. And now and those who had seen
it described to them what had happened to the demon possessed
man to the pigs. And they began to.
Praise Jesus and worship. Jesus and give their lives.
To Jesus, right? Now look at the text they began
to. Beg Jesus to depart.
From their region, Jesus Get out of here and as he was getting
into the boat. The man who had been possessed
with demons begged him that he might be with him, but Jesus did
not permit him, but said to him, Go home to your friends and tell
them how much. The Lord has done for you and
how He has had mercy on you, I don't think.
Jesus is being mean to this man, but.
Jesus is being kicked out of this region, so for him to send
a missionary is what his it's. Strategic he's.
Sending this dude back into that region with the gospel.
And he went away and began to proclaim in the Decapolis how
much Jesus had. Done for him and everyone
marveled. Jesus, does this mighty work
right and. It's met with resistance, right?
We miss the old you we miss. What is that?
You guys can have a seat. I'm going to need this.
I feel like I'm talking in like a jazz voice.
You know? Start like a soothing like.
Radio Jazz with Cole right now. It's not a good, it's not a good
look for me, but it's like, where do you?
Even start with the story like this, right You've got you've
got a demon possessed man, You've got a man possessed by
many demons. As though things couldn't get
more metal. All the sudden there's demon
pigs, Demon pigs, which I think would probably make a great
movie. Or at least like a a metal band
name, right? It's Upward Demon.
That's got to exist, right? It's just the wildest.
So let's start where the story starts, which is at the
beginning of the. Story So Jesus has just still
the storm with his disciples. He crosses the sea.
He's beginning to start and initiate his mission in in a non
Jewish and a gentile area and as.
Soon as he gets. As soon as he gets to the
shoreline, all of a sudden there's a demon possessed man
who's rushing down and meets him right there, which is like think
about that by the way, from the perspective of think about that
from the. Perspective of the disciples?
That's terrifying to say the least, right?
I mean, there's so many. Scary details in this text.
There's so many Scary. Details in this text that I feel
like it makes like the 1970s. Horror classic The Exorcist look
tame. This, this big, strong, demon
possessed man immediately is running down to the shoreline to
meet the Disciples. When I was in Colorado a couple
years ago, I'll never forget my dad's disappointment in me.
He was so disappointed in me. We we were kayaking in in in
Colorado together and we were in really really really shallow
part of the of the pond and all the sudden.
Like 50 yards that way was a big old bull moose.
Like Gigantic. And my dad was like, Cole,
don't. He was like, don't get too close
to that bull moose. I got too close to the bull
moose. I started kayaking.
I was like, I kayak to about 20, probably like 20 yards away, and
the thing turns and looks at me. And just charges me and I
remember hearing my. Dad, say Cole.
Russell. I thought it was over.
I thought it was. I thought it was over.
This thing just charges me and then like 10 yards away, he.
Peels off. I was like, oh, thank you,
Jesus, Right. This is what the perspective is
of the disciples, right? There's this strong demon
possessed man that's charging them in A.
Couple yards away, he peels off. He falls on his knees before.
Jesus, there's a ton of terrifying things about this
demon possessed man. Amen.
So many. Scary details.
There's like there's like chains hanging from his limbs.
Right. Apparently he was so strong that
whenever people would try and bind him down with chains, they
couldn't. He'd break the shackles.
Got chains hanging over here. Chains hanging on.
Over here, here's a scary detail.
Where does he live among the tubes now?
I don't know what's going on there.
OKI think there's at least a couple things going there some.
People think that he's probably communing with the dead.
I don't know. I think what's happening right
here is that. This is a dude who's been
clearly ostracized from society. In fact, since he lives among
the tombs, it's almost symbolic. I think it's a way.
Of saying this dude is dead to the world, and the world is.
Dead to him to get all these terrifying.
The dude cries out and screams. Because of all of the internal
anguish. That he experiences in life, I
mean imagine. That you're putting your kids
down to sleep at night. And in the distance you hear
that demon possessed man screaming and crying.
This is some terrifying stuff. Cue.
Cue the horror music, right? The most terrifying thing, I
think, is the fact that this man experiences so much internal
anguish that he's taking rocks and he's cutting himself with
them to relieve himself of that internal pain.
This is not. Great stuff.
This dude charges Jesus and the disciples.
Peels off a couple yards away, buckles to his knees, buckles to
his knees and says. Jesus, what have you to do with
me, Son of the Most High God? And almost unbelievably, nobody
cares about this dude's name. This dude is dead to the world,
almost unbelievably, in the face of this demon possessed man.
Jesus says. What's?
Your name and the dude, says Frank.
Thanks for asking now. I do well with that crowd,
Legion, for we are many. Like, oh man, that'll send a
chill down your spine, right? So apparently this demon
possessed man recognizes the messianic identity of Jesus and
begs him not to torment him. So this is not an arm wrestling
match. A lot of times pop culture
portrays God's war with evil as an arm wrestling match.
It's not. This is a.
Being who is so? Far exalted, above the powers of
darkness. That when the powers of darkness
encounter him, all they can do is beg to not be tormented.
Think about that. And so Jesus grants permission
for these demons to exit this man's body, and they go into
the. It's it's not even really
appropriate to say that Jesus casted out the demons.
He simply gave these demons permission, which is incredible
because they discovered some papyrus from ancient Egypt a
long time ago. And what this?
Papyrus has are just all of these long winded instructions
about how to exercise demons right all these spells.
You have to do all of these chants that you have to do in.
Order to exercise these demons. Thank you, sweetheart.
I'm such a bit I was a Pokémon master.
Back in the day, did I ever tell you that I have a?
First addition to. Holographic Char is hard.
So we just gives these demons permission.
It's an unbelievable story and. Then what the herdsman does is
he goes back and he tells the town people, they all come here
and what did they find? It's an unbelievable ending to
an otherwise terrifying story. There's the man who was
formerly. Possessed by.
And he's sitting there calmly in his right mind, clothed.
But at least we get a happy ending, right?
Terrifying. Let's dig a little bit deeper.
Okay. There's two things I really want
to dig and do into this story. There were like 5, but clearly,
clearly my voice isn't going to carry.
All that. So let's do 2.
Let's rewind back to the story and here's the 1st.
Question What do these demons call Jesus?
There's a very specific title that these demons use to address
Jesus and. Go ahead and open your Bible.
Look at this is really important verse.
Digging into this I think is going to help.
Us See how deep this story is? Verse 7 Crying out with a loud
voice. He said to Jesus, What have you
to do? With me Jesus, Son of the most.
High God now if you if you got a pen, circle that.
If you got a highlighter, highlight that.
If you have neither, remember that in your head.
He calls Jesus. Son of the most.
High God okay. So to understand this identity,
you've really. Got to understand it from
Jesus's perspective, and in Jesus's time, so being called a
son of God was not just familial, it was an inescapably
militant term. Okay.
It had to. It was kind of a reference to a
military hero, because what a son is in the ancient world was
somebody who represented the father, would inherit the
father's stuff and fought the father's battles for him, Okay.
So it was the representation of the Father, made of the same
substance, made of the same DNA, made of the same stuff, but also
would fight the Father's battles for him.
And that's why when you read the Old Testament, all the
predictions of the Son of God coming in the flesh had to do
with military. Victories if you were a 1st
century. Jew you believe that when the
Son of God came, he would come as a.
War hero, right? As a military victor, you would
think that he came to fight God's battle against the bad
guys. Who are the bad guys?
That's a super easy question. Judy's exactly right.
It's Rome. Right.
Every 1st century Jew would have an easy stock answer.
Roman Ornie, right? And you got to understand why
they thought this right? There were tons of reasons for
thinking this. For instance, Rome was an
ancient superpower, and as an ancient superpower they were not
a democracy or anything close to it.
In fact, Caesar demanded not just allegiance from his
subjects, but worship. An ancient world was.
Happy to give it to him as long as Caesar provided them with
protection, right? As long as it.
Provided them with security as long as he provided them with
safety and peace and prosperity. The ancient world was.
Happy to worship Caesar, everybody in the ancient.
World was happy to worship Caesar except for one pesky.
Group of people, those pesky Yahweh worshippers, the Jews,
the worshippers of the Triune God of the Bible.
They said, no, we're not going to worship you.
We only worship the God of the Bible.
And Caesar was like, why not? And they were like because we
only worship the God of the Bible.
And he was like, that's dumb. I would have been a.
Really bad history teacher. Clearly there's some heat
though, right? There's some tension between
Rome and and and the Jews. But after a little bit of
dialogue and a lot of deal making, eventually they formed
what was called the Jewish Rome Pact.
This is super important. But just before Jesus was born,
they formed this pact. We're essentially Jewish
leaders. Talk to Roman leaders and
they're like, hey, we're not going to worship.
Caesar as God, but what we will do?
Is pray for Caesar on behalf of our God.
Is that cool? And Rome said That's cool.
But even though they formed and established that Pact.
Obviously, like, obviously, Rome was still.
Super duper Suspicious of the Jews, right?
They were like voted most likely to overthrow Rome.
So that brings in the issue of Roman occupation.
So they send Roman soldiers, Roman army members, Roman
occupation, even the places like Jerusalem, the holy city, and
they. Keep a really, really close eye
on the Jews, making sure that there's no sort of revolt being
planned. So can you feel the tension here
if you were 1st century Jew and and and you saw?
Roman soldiers spying on you, you.
Right. You would.
You would hate Rome, and Rome hated the Jews, and the Jews
hated Rome and Rome hated the Jews.
And so the most natural feeling in the world would be the
feeling of when the Son of God comes, he's going to finally
overthrow the Roman army he's going to.
Crush Caesar and will finally experience peace on earth.
When is the divine Warrior King, Son of God coming?
To do that. And here's the Son of the Most
High God, and he comes to Earth. And rather than pursuing Caesar
and Caesar's army, he approaches a different army, doesn't he?
He approaches an. Army of demons that have seized
this one man and you know how. The rest of the story goes he
get, he cast the demons out into the pigs.
Demon pigs. The demon pigs go running off
the Cliff. They crash into the sea and
they're drowned and we get this incredible happy.
Ending to an otherwise terrifying story, there's the
formerly. Demon possessed man.
He's sitting there calmly in his right mind and cloth.
Beautiful ending to the story. The type of feel good ending
that you want to your horror movie, right?
Well, here's the thing. And this is the second detail we
need to rewind to the demons called Jesus the Son of the Most
High God. What do they call themselves?
Verse 9 And Jesus asked him what is your name?
This is where things go from unbelievable to I don't know
what's after that double. And he replied, My name is
legion, for we are many. That's some freaky stuff.
Man, like, I don't know a lot about demons.
I'm not one of those guys who spends every waking hour in my
parents basement studying demonology and putting it up on
whiteboards and stuff like that. Like, that guy's name is Andrew
Self and he lives in Texas. Now I don't know A.
Whole lot about demons, right? If you're like, hey, Cole, yeah,
let's work through this, Okay. So if you're like, hey, Cole.
Do you think? Demons still exist, I'll say,
yeah. Well, why don't we see
experiences like this all the time?
I don't know. Will we?
Maybe. Do you think that'll happen as
things go further and further from modernity into some weird
spirituality? Probably, but I'm not exactly
sure. You don't seem to know a lot
about. Demons, Cole.
No, I don't, but there's a couple details.
That start to come through here, for instance, demons desire to
Incarnate the bodies of humans, right?
I mean that's just that's just clear.
Here's the weird. Thing, though Apparently more
than one demon. Can Incarnate the singular body
of an individual. I'm not sure how that works, but
he says. Legion for We are many.
Some weird stuff in here. Apparently demons can even
Incarnate into the body of animals, in this case, demon
pigs. Again, I don't know what to make
of any of this, but we can dig deeply into this Legion thing if
you got a. Pen, you're.
Going to want to circle that. If you don't remember that
Legion. Here's the deal.
Jesus says what's your name? The demon says.
Legion Legion's not a name. Legion's a term, precisely.
It's a Greek. Term and it's a Greek.
Term that refers to the. Largest segments of the Roman
army. Oh yeah, this is crazy.
OK, so they said. That I, I think, like these
legions. OK, so.
Roman legions would sometimes have up to like 2.
Thousand soldiers in them, sometimes 4000, sometimes 5000
soldiers. Now, does that mean that there's
4005 thousand demons in this person?
I don't know. How could I know those types of
things OK? It sounds like I didn't study.
I did. I just don't know.
So there's a. Legion in here.
But here's the thing. Legion isn't a name.
It's a word. It's a Greek word for Rome's
largest armies. Do you see what's going on here?
So they. Thought that when the son.
Of God came, he would. Come establish his Kingdom on
earth with the military victory over Caesar and the Roman
armies. And he does.
It's just not the army. They thought he came to fight
Jesus. Came to fight an army.
They thought they needed to be saved from Caesar.
They thought they. Needed to be saved from Roman
occupation. They wanted him to.
What they needed to be saved from was demon occupation and
their own. Fight the army out there, Jesus.
Came to fight the army in here. You guys with me?
So, Jesus. Keeps the messianic expectation
of the Son of God as the divine warrior and then flips it.
You don't need saved from them. You need saved from this in
here. And what happens next is an
unbelievable foreshadowing of what Jesus will do.
One day he cast the demons off the Cliff.
And drowns them in the abyss. And that is exactly what Jesus.
Is going to do one day when he comes back.
Amen. He's going to return.
As the divine warrior king of God, as the son of the Most High
God. And he's going to take Satan.
He's going to take the devil. He's going to take demons.
He's going to take death and he's going to throw them in the
lake of fire and burn them forever.
It's going to be an amazing moment when he finally cleanses
the world and what will become of us?
We'll be there. Just like that formerly demon
possessed man, we'll be there, sitting there with joy, finally
in our right minds, and finally. Clothed in the righteousness of
Jesus. So there he is.
That's the gospel. He's clothed.
It's. Like finally bro.
Clothed and in his right mind, and we get that happy ending
that we crave. As we watch the horror movie,
finally things end really well, right?
Here's where things get scarier. In my opinion, it's easy to.
Look at the demons. And be like that's terrifying.
But I think what happens next is actually the most terrifying
part. The herdsman, he goes to get the
village. People, they come out and what
you expect to happen is Jesus is the divine Son of God.
Let's give our lives. To Jesus, let's exalt.
Him as the most glorious one in the entire cosmos, and what you
see happening should send chills down your bones.
How did they respond? Verse 17 And they begin to beg
Jesus to depart from their region.
That's scarier than demons. That's scarier.
Than the shackles hanging off of his wrists.
That's scarier. Than this man cutting himself
with stones. That's scarier.
Than this man crying out day and night.
Apparently it's possible to see the Son of God in the flesh,
bring healing and forgiveness and joy and say Jesus get.
Out of my life. And so here's the big question
that we need to. Wrestle with this Morning, This
is a hard. Question to wrestle with, but
the the story begs that we wrestle with this.
Question and the question is this Do you love your pigs more
than you love Jesus? It's.
Almost logical from the perspective of the world, right?
Because to us, when we see all of these demon pigs go crashing
into the ocean, we're just like, yeah, way to go, Jesus, that's.
So metal throwing demon pigs off a Cliff, but to this man.
That's his entire financial wellbeing. 2000 pigs.
This man just lost his job because of Jesus.
To the townspeople, that's their lunch for like the next 10
years, and it just went off the Cliff.
To this entire village and to this entire town, they just
experienced economic catastrophe.
Worse. Than the stock market crashing,
so they look at Jesus. And they say get out of our
town, so you have to ask. The question this morning Do I
love my pigs more than I love Jesus?
I'm not stupid. I know that you're not a pig
farmer, most of you. So let me ask the question in a
way that makes sense on your context in your life.
What is it? That ultimately gives you
comfort and security. That's the question, right?
What makes you feel ultimately safe?
And for some of you, it's your job.
For some of you, it's your spouse.
For some of you, it's a dark pleasure that.
You've been hiding. For some of you, it's an
innocent hobby. What in life ultimately gives
you security? As you think about that.
Honestly, if anything other than God comes to mind, those are
your picks. Those are your picks.
Or to phrase the question theologically, those are your
idols, so idolatry is a word that.
You see in the Bible and what it refers to.
Is anything good or bad that you exalt above the supremacy of
Jesus so? Idols aren't just bad things.
They're also good. Things in the wrong place.
Like 2000 pigs. It's a great thing to be a pig.
Farmer, it's a. Great thing to feed the town
with pork. It's a great thing to be good at
your job. You should be good at your job,
but when you exalt it above the supremacy of Jesus.
That's. When you've got an idol.
So the question we have to ask. This morning is do you love
your? Pigs more than you love Jesus.
I mean, what is that like? What?
Is that in the human spirit that
could look at A? Who's been?
Tormented for the last 10 years of his life, cutting himself
crying out screaming. Seeing him get healed and
thinking, yeah, but I miss my pigs.
What is that? It's idolatry, right?
And the thing about idolatry is that it works predictably.
In all of our. It makes us go out of our.
Right Mind doesn't. It and I.
Don't want you to miss the beautiful literary.
That's in this text, the irony is this.
At the end of the story, it's the demon possessed.
Man who's in his right. Mind in the village people who
are. Out of their minds.
That's the effect that idolatry has on us.
We go out of our minds. And if you don't believe?
Me try and take away just. Go take away somebody's idol and
see how they respond. Right, We go.
Out of our minds when our idols get taken away from us and you
find yourself in curious places like for.
Instance if you make an. Idol out of your son or
daughter, you might just find that one day when they come back
and they're independent. And on fire for.
Jesus, and healthy and happy, you might find yourself saying.
I miss the old you, right? Because that's a version of her
that you could control. It was a virgin of her, that's.
Familiar, you might find yourself saying.
You might find yourself saying to a guy who was formerly
possessed by a legion of demons. I miss Legion, this is.
Craziness, isn't it? It's madness.
What is that? And the thing?
I love about the Bible is that it gives us an answer, right?
Those people weren't demon possessed.
So what? Is that in the human spirit that
responds? That way, in the Bible
unflinchingly gives us an answer to this.
That's your. Human nature and.
It's in you and it's in me. And.
It's in all of us. We're all born with this clay
that's deeply. Fallen One term that Christian
theologians have used to make sense of all of this is the
phrase total depravity. Right.
And it's the understanding not that we're utterly depraved and
can only do evil things. We're like a mess, right?
We're we're made both in the image of God and we're glorious.
But we're also. You know, beset by sin, and we
struggle with stupid. Things we're made of dirt and
spirit and so we we're we have this capacity.
For evil and this capacity for good.
But what total Depravity teaches is that.
Even though we can do great things and good.
Things we can do. Nothing that's not at least a
little bit tainted. By sin and the the way to prove
that to you is honestly, just think about yourself,
soberminded. You've never been able to do
anything with a totally pure totally.
Clean conscience and intention. Everything is tainted by sin.
Cornelius van Til was Reformed theologian in the 1800s.
And Van Til. He explained total depravity
this way, I think. This is the perfect metaphor.
What he says is imagine imagine a glass of water.
And then an eyedropper that drops.
One drop of. Poison into the glass of.
Water, you got that is the glass of.
Water as poisoned as it could be?
No, but. Everything in the glass of water
is. And that means that everything
we do has some. Poison in it, even when we read
our. Bibles, right?
It can be tainted by poison like a man.
I really want to look self-righteous in front of my
Christian friends. Right.
Even when we hold the door open for the elderly, right, there's
this, there's this poison. In there that's like I hope.
Somebody saw me? I hope somebody's going to come
pinch my cheeks and tell me I'm mom's special little cowboy and
they don't make them like they used to, right?
It's all tainted by some level of sin.
And what I love about the Bible is the Bible just doesn't lie to
us, right? Nowhere in the Bible are you
like hey. You are Mommy's special little.
Cowboy, right? The Bible's like, hey, Mommy's.
Little special Little Cowboy is totally depraved.
And you're like, yeah, that's actually true.
That's how the Bible wins us over is by being honest about
our nature. So everything that we do is
depraved and that means that sometimes.
We see. God do amazing things.
In the world. And we're like, I miss my pigs.
So the question is, do you love your pigs more than you love
Jesus? This whole human nature.
It's dark and it's scary, but it's also.
Because. Everybody in this room, we all
are jacked. And we all struggle with sin and
we all have idols that we're working through.
Like if you have something come to mind as your idol this
morning, it doesn't. Make you a freak.
It makes you human, right? It's a totally level.
Playing ground. That's why the Bible says all
have fallen short of the glory of God and all of sin to
perform. And that means that there's
absolutely no way to earn this. God's love can't do it.
You can't earn His love because you can't do.
Anything that's untainted by sin.
There's no way to impress him. There's no way to earn his love.
You can sleep on a bed of Bibles and it won't earn your
salvation. You can go to church twice every
Sunday from now until when you die.
Way to earn your salvation. Can't earn your salvation.
There's. And that literally means that
there's only one way to experience salvation, grace.
That's it. The grace of Jesus is the.
Only way to experience salvation.
And fortunately for us, that's exactly.
What we see in this story, right?
Imagine Legion sprinting down. He's got nothing to offer Jesus,
right he? He's not a church member.
He hasn't memorized the Bible. He hasn't earned anything.
All he does is he collapses in front of Jesus.
And Jesus heals him right and and because of.
Grace and grace alone, this formerly demon possessed man is.
Sitting there in. His right mind clothed.
That's the gospel clothed. Because when you come to Jesus.
You're not just forgiven of your sin, you're clothed in the
righteousness of Jesus. All the shackles are gone, all
of the scars. Are gone.
You are clothed in the virtue of Jesus.
So that when the Father sees you, he sees you.
Covered in the perfection of Jesus, clothed.
In your right mind because he doesn't just clothe you, he
also. Gives you a new nature.
He gives you a nature that values.
God more than pigs, He gives you a nature that though it's not
perfect, you at least start to hate your sin and you love God
and that's what it means to be saved by Jesus grace.
Clothed in Jesus's. Clothing, given a right mind and
then as you. Begin to walk out this new life
of yours, one of the. Curious things is that.
Not everybody's going to be there to celebrate it.
This is true. Right as you begin to get
transformed into the image of Jesus.
And yet, as you begin to grow in Christ likeness, as you begin to
walk into new life, some people aren't going to like it.
Because it's a version of. You that they can't control.
It's a version of you that feels unfamiliar.
It's a. Version of you that because of
your joy. Because of your holiness and
makes other people feel bad. So rather than being there to
cheer you on and support you. They're going to look.
At you and say I miss the old you.
We don't know what the end of the The Herdsman story is.
You know, we really don't. I couldn't stop thinking about
that this week. I mean, maybe as this dude who
was formerly possessed by demons.
Integrates back into the community.
And maybe he's. Reunited with his his friends
again, maybe he's reunited with his family once again.
Maybe those kids. Maybe his wife finally has her
husband. Finally have their father back,
and he begins to live in his new.
Identity in Jesus, maybe the herdsman.
Begins to think, You know what? Maybe taking away all my pigs.
Was the best thing Jesus? Has ever done for me.
I mean, Jesus is. So committed to your Christ
likeness. That he will Chuck your pigs off
the Cliff. If he needs to, that's how
committed he is. I remember, Sorry, I'm ranting
now. I want to end right here.
About a year ago I was talking to a pastor friend of mine and
he was walking through experiencing his father walk.
Through dementia. And he was.
Talking about what it was like to see his father.
Loses his memory and that hit home.
For me, for a lot of different reasons, but.
He had this conversation with his dad that has just stuck.
With me, ever since then, he's talking to his dad about
dementia, and this was kind of in the first stages of dementia
before his father lost his memory entirely.
And this man said to his son. You know what, Tom?
So I look back in my life, I think.
I always made an idol out of my intelligence.
Always made an. Idol out of my mind.
I looked at my mind and my intelligence as a reason for not
needing God. I looked at my intelligence as
what made me special and unique in the world.
I think it was an idol of mine, but God is so gracious.
That he's. Finally taking this idol away.
From me so the. Word to describe Jesus causing
an economic catastrophe. And taking away this man's pigs.
The proper word for that is grace.
Because it's it's better to have.
Jesus and lose your memory than it is to keep your memory and
lose Jesus. And so, yeah, they're going to
be. People who look at you and say I
miss the old you. But meditate on this, brother.
Meditate on this, sister, and as you do the rest of the week.
I don't think you'll ever find the bottom of this truth.
Some people will look at you and say I miss the old you, but.
Jesus doesn't miss the old you, and that's what matters.
Heavenly Father, I pray that you would just lavish us this
morning with grace, the grace that forgives us of our sins,
the grace that clothes us in your righteousness.
The grace that makes us sons and daughters of the living God, and
the grace that. Loves us so much that is willing
to. Throw our pigs off the Cliff.
If need be, it's in the precious name of.
Jesus that we pray for. These things.
Amen.